Imaginary
by lovelytl23
Summary: A lonely mother and housewife is haunted by terrible and wonderful dreams.  She is in love with the ghost that torments her nights and her mind is slipping between reality and imagination.
1. Chapter 1

Swallowing a scream, she woke up as the remembered dream lingered in her mind. Her power; lack of it and amazement of what she did have of it. The attack was brief before she woke to the purple sky and haze of sleep. She thought of her husband at work, with distaste as she remembered the "man" that always attacked her or kept her too suffocated with love during these dreams. A shudder of repulsive hate washed through her body as she sat up to start the day. She sat up on the side of the bed and traced a line across the purple and blue flowers embroidered in the cream quilt. She stretched her sore muscles. Her muscles were always sore. She ached, deep in her body, every day of her life. She hated the aches and pains that had taken over her bloated body in the last few years since the stroke. She stood, slowly so she didn't have a sudden blood pressure drop and pass out. She was thirty years old. She rubbed her eyes and looked around her small bedroom. Correction, her and her husband's small bedroom. The periwinkle painted walls reflected the sun. She loved the contrast of the purplish walls and the austere white trim. She smoothed her hand across the dusty nightstand and examined the dirt on the tips of her fingers. The grime she knocked off glittered in the sun like fairy dust. She shrugged on a pink bathrobe from the hook behind her bedroom door and tied the belt around her fat belly. She looked across the bed to the window and winced at the sunlight streaming through. She walked around the bed, to her husband's side and drew the chocolate colored, polyester curtains closed so the light wouldn't be as blinding. She scooted back between the narrow opening between the foot of the bed and the door-less closet that was too small to hold all of her and her husband's clothes. She stubbed her little toe on the footboard as she sidled back to her side of the bed. She swore and gave the offending piece of furniture a scathing stare as she made her way around the rest of the bed and to the door to the hallway. She walked down the green hallway carpet to the long, narrow bathroom without turning on any lights. She staggered and let her shoulder fall along the smooth hallway wall and guide her to the dimly lit, yellow bathroom just like she did every morning. Her balance had failed her after the stroke and it was especially bad in the mornings after a prescription-drug induced sleep. The tepid water came from the short spout and sputtered to life as she took a blue washcloth from the shelf that stood next to the sink stand. The washcloth was thick and new and luxurious. No old towels in this house. She ran the cloth under the flowing well water as it became too hot to touch and burned her fingers and she wrung the excess water from the cloth then placed it open and burning on her upturned face. The steam felt good as she breathed in the moist air for a second before scouring her flesh with the stinging cloth and scrubbing away the sleep and the muddle. Her eyebrows curled up in a devilish way when the washcloth went up her forehead and she, as always arranged them back into a careful arch over her brow bone. Her cheeks were red and inflamed and her skin was smooth and clean from blemishes. This was her only facial skin care routine. She didn't really care whether she got wrinkles or age spots or red skin. Who cared? There was no one to care. Not anymore. Not even herself. She turned her cheeks to the mirror, then her chin and nose checking for open pores or blemishes, but knew there wouldn't be any until she started her menstrual cycle when she would get one pimple deep underneath her skin on her chin and it would never come to a head and would clear up on it's own. She combed her day-old greasy hair back into a pony tail and sighed as she took her electric toothbrush and turned the cool handle on the sink to make the still running water go from scalding to warm. She brushed her teeth with the mild water, thinking that cold water might not be as effective at fighting teeth gunk as warmer water. When she finished her careful three minutes of brushing she switched the hot handle off and only left the cold water running because she liked to rinse with cold water, it made her breath feel fresher. She finished the sink handles by finally turning off the cold water. She liked her routine with the sink handles. Hot to warm to cold to off. It made her feel clever. At least something did. She went back to her room and opened her wardrobe to pick another pair of cotton sleep shorts and a t-shirt to change into from the current ones she was wearing. At least today she changed clothes. She doesn't always. She gets tired. She doesn't care. Her dirty clothes go into the hamper at the side of the dresser and she decided not to even look at the mirror as she left the room. Her shoulder lead the way again down the L-shaped hallway to the living room. The worn living room wooden floor squeaked under her weight as she entered the pretty room. She had had this room painted a bright apple-green. Her artwork adorned the walls. She didn't bother with artwork anymore. She had no inspiration or time. The sunshine coming in through the glass door and floor to ceiling window didn't bother her. By now her sleepy eyes had adjusted to all of the light and she found the warmth of the room comforting. She walked clumsily into the kitchen. The cabinets were stained a warm honey color to match the real wood paneling on the walls. The white linoleum floor was cool on her bare feet. She went to the new black refrigerator and poured herself a glass of milk. She loved the way the black appliances contrasted with the honey color of the walls and cabinets. She had done good when picking out appliances for the kitchen. She sat down at the rickety, second hand dark brown table. She wanted to replace this, but money was too tight right now for her to worry about replacing it. Her husband and children, long gone to work and school left the usual morning mess. Cereal bowls lay haphazardly over the table. Milk spills pooled on the placemats and a spoon, sticky with sugar, was stuck to the wood surface. She gathered the relics of breakfast and grimaced at the disrespect of the mess and perceived it's deeper meaning. The mess said to her that she was only here to clean up behind those more important than herself. It screamed to her "Screw you and your plans, clean and earn your keep". It taunted her. She ran the dishes through the hot water of the kitchen faucet and put them neatly into the black dishwasher for a later load when it would be more full. She finished cleaning the remains of her family's refuse. The air was hot and stagnant and she turned on the antique, greenish metal fan in the kitchen. It looked like the kind one would see in black and white films. If she stuck her finger in it, it would cut it off. The thought lingered in her mind and she watched the knife-like blades spin until she thought she might fall face first into the fan. She walked back to the table and took up the cup of milk and sorted out the pills she had to take every morning. The pills mocked her hatred of them every time they stuck in her throat and caused her to choke back a cough. She wasn't supposed to take some of them with milk. Water only. She doesn't care. Water first thing in the morning gagged her.

She walked back to the bedroom. She had hoped to feel good enough today to do a little housework, but knew if she did the work and felt weak later, her husband would scold her like a child for "overdoing it" and somehow make her feel worse than if she had done nothing at all. She chose to do nothing at all. She is in the middle of a novel and today seemed as good as any day for finishing it. She might do some laundry. The pile was getting high, but she could have the kids do a load or two when they get home. Her mother was always telling her how much work those kids should be doing and keeping her from having to do as much of it. After all, they are plenty old enough and doing chores never hurt any kid and if they don't do them, how will they know how to do things for themselves when they are older. They are older now. They should help out. The stroke was four years ago. They've grown a lot since then and they grew up a lot since then. They can help now. She absentmindedly walked back out of her room and went into the living room. She passed the couch and saw an old popsicle stick laying on the wood floor as though this house were simply a giant wastebasket and trash could be put anywhere. Except the garbage can. She bent over and picked up the popsicle stick and walked it back into the kitchen to the garbage bin. She remembered the spilled milk on the table and got the dish cloth and cleaned up the mess and rinsed the rag so it didn't smell of sour milk later. She walked back to the bedroom and looked around at the dirty clothes on the floor and decided to leave them where they were.

She crawled back into bed and took a pain pill and rolled over to read her novel. _Belong to Me_, a book she had bought on a whim in a drugstore bin. It was wonderful actually, the name conveyed the message of all these characters and their deepest desires. Her deepest desires. She didn't belong to anybody. Maybe. She didn't know if anyone belonged to her either. As she read, the pain medicine began to affect her and she nodded off.

She was running. Running with her children, who were her children but smaller, like dolls. She had to keep them safe. There were only two of them. Where was the third? Where was Ferris? He wasn't biologically hers, maybe that kept him from her dreams but her daughter Rowan and her son Blythe were there and she had to protect them. Where the fuck were the bullets coming from? She ran with the children into a glass building. A tall glass building. Where was this? The inside was away from all the panic and death of outside. In fact the inside was very much like a little home. She put her children in a bed together and told them to hold each other and turned on an enormous box television set to a cartoon that was very loud but she couldn't figure out how to turn it down, so she left it on and went out of the room. As she explored the house she found a little door. A little white door that she could barely fit in and went straight up to a spiraled staircase. She climbed and climbed and began to suffocate in the small space. Suddenly she was in her grandmothers old trailer home and this staircase had led her to an upper story she had not remembered in her grandmother's real house, but inside were all types of beautiful dolls and lovely furniture and jewelry that her grandmother had left to her and she cried for the loss of her grandmother as she stroked the pretty dolls and looked at old photographs. He came in. Into her grandmothers sacred space. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her into breathless gasps. She struggled and couldn't escape this suffocating embrace and cried out for the ghost. He always heard her. He filled her, every fiber of her body and leaked in through her pores. He consumed her and made her nipples hard and her body strong and her sex come alive. She broke the embrace and made the conscious decision to fly away. She knew she was dreaming, but also knew she could do this and the feel of the ghost in her made her feel giddy and free and he was inside her mind and body. His shapeless form enveloped her and touched her naked buttocks and gripped her erect nipples almost painfully. Immobilized with need and fear, she opened herself to him and he entered her sex and brought her to climax as she woke with a shudder. Trembling, she opened her eyes and wished for the dream to come back as she involuntarily touched between her legs. My god, she thought, I'm wet. She was still haunted by the resonance of passion this ghost had aroused in her and caused her to physically react.

She rubbed herself between her thighs in the hopes of arousal and possibly bringing herself to orgasm but found herself completely spent and in no need of such a thing. She felt sticky and humid in the stagnant air of the room and got up to get a glass of water. Her fingers didn't smell of sex; she had had a complete orgasm in her sleep and never touched herself. She still pulsed lightly from the act and went to the bathroom to pee and change her wet underwear. Her nap had cost her nearly four hours and the kids would be home soon. She liked to try and look decent for the kids like a real housewife. She had never had milk and cookies waiting but she knew she was the role-model for her daughter and didn't want her sons to eventually marry some slob who couldn't even get the energy to bathe herself everyday, or sometimes every third day.

She re-fixed her hair into the greasy pony tail and put on a pair of Capri pants that were too baggy in the butt, but who cared? She didn't. She washed her hands in the stainless steel kitchen sink with the orange antibacterial dish soap. She scrubbed hard in case her hands did smell like her sex and she just didn't realize it. After all she couldn't have the kids smelling such a thing on her. She went outside the heavy kitchen door to the side deck and smoked one more cigarette and brushed her teeth again so her youngest son wouldn't question her. She hid her cigarettes in her dresser and found some clothes in the dryer to fold so that she looked like she had been doing something all day. She folded three shirts and a pair of jeans and then waited to fold any more until she could see the kids running down the driveway so she wouldn't run out of laundry to fold before they saw her in action. She didn't start another wash load but did put the wash into the dryer so it wouldn't get that sour mildew smell. She hated that smell, especially on towels. Towels that had that smell would make a body smell sour all day. The kids came running in the door, not shutting it all the way like they did everyday and she smiled and said "shut the door all the way", which her daughter did by slamming it into the door frame. "How was school today guys?" She kept her smile on because asking that without a smile was stupid. Like her. Stupid. "Great mom! Can I have some money for the social on Friday? They are having this band play, it's a christian band, but they're like rock? So they're like cool? So can I?" Her daughter, her beautiful daughter. Some days she wanted to just stare at her daughter in the face and cry tears of pride. She was tall with milky skin and chic freckles. Her green eyes could flicker and joy spread everywhere her radiance touched. She had perfect, ripe peach lips; a little on the thin side but still nicely shaped. She would be a good kisser. Her long red hair hung nearly to her waist and was the color of a new copper penny. How had she created a creature as beautiful as her Rowan. This faerie-like creature just popped into her life when she was 18. She had still been a scared kid, but this being, this perfect human being would be her life and death and breath. This was her legacy. No son could be his mother's legacy. This would be her gift to the world. A creature so lovely and strong and ethereal that making this child made her feel like a goddess. This was creation. Her youngest son, Blythe, ran to her and hugged her tight and kissed her right on the mouth. He was nearly twelve but wasn't embarrassed to show affection to his mom. He had always been this way. He was such a delicious baby. Fat. Not roly-poly, butterball kind of fat, but chubby and sweet smelling. He had deep brown eyes that reminded her of a fawn and olive skin that tanned in the lightest sun exposure. She had always kissed his mouth from the time he was a baby. His lips were full and pouty like his fathers and smelled like sweet things. He pulled away long enough to show her his comic book he had been studiously working on while at school. He made straight A's and she never worried about his school work suffering even when the teachers complained that he was too talkative and liked to draw too much. She liked to point out to the teachers that he was also in the advanced learning classes and was allowed to tutor other kids in advanced reading courses. Leave him alone, she thought. Let him be a child. Let him be this beaming sun-ray of light with fawn eyes and dimples in his left cheek when he smiled. She knew his every freckle, every nuance of his face. He had a freckle on the inside of his right nostril that sometimes even she mistook for a need to blow his nose. He had a small mole, beauty mark, on the underside of his jaw and a freckle on the sole of his left foot that had been there since the day he was born. His nose was still round and soft like a child's, not the grown up nose that sometimes graced the faces of other children and made them look like small, odd adults. He had written in maker all over his hands in the decorations of his favorite wrestler and snuggled into her one more time and kissed her and said he loved her more than she did him which led to the inevitable "argument" of who loved who best, often reaching ridiculous levels of love such as "I love you more bestest in the entire universe of people who love people and one more than infinity, etc..." She loved that game, and liked to let him win some of the time; pretending that whatever he could come up with was nothing she could top at the moment. Ferris stood glumly waiting for his turn at the attention. Everyday she asked her stepson how his day in school was and everyday he said it was horrible while looking like a famine victim. She had not conquered this attitude no matter how many books she had read, about everyone from little kids to teenagers. Ferris was 12 years old and a little troubled thanks to a careless natural mother and misguided attempts at parenting by his single father and his grandparents. Ferris needed counseling, this she knew, but she didn't know how to get it for him as she had no legal guardianship over him and no way of knowing his medical history. His father was in denial, and she just coped the best way she could. She tried the "drawing out" questions, such as "what made your day so bad?". His reply was "Everything". He usually stuck to one answer questions and when he couldn't answer in one word, he ignored her completely. He didn't hate her or hate that she was with his father. He simply wished his mother would live up to the pedestal he had tried to keep her on for seven long years and every year she fell further. Not to mention he hated her new husband and the fact that she had children with him after all but abandoning him. He once said "she had a family, why does she need a new one?" She couldn't answer him except to say that his mother still loved him, but just couldn't be with him now. She hated herself for covering for that woman. She would go through heaven and earth to reach her children, even the one that didn't seem to want her. How could a natural mother abandon her child. She couldn't. Only an unnatural woman could do such a thing. A snake of hatred wound through her head at his mother while another snake of anger towards Ferris's attitude twisted together with the first leaving her with the thought that she would never measure up, and never be this little boys mother. Fuck your love, it isn't good enough. Neither are you. You never will be. Every time those almond shaped black eyes stared at her through that mask of black hair that he hid behind she knew she would never matter to him. Only in gifts and favors. She refused to buy his or anyone else's love. Her irritation towards his seeming lack of feeling made her feel a bit repulsed by him and she didn't bother to try to hug him. He would dodge it anyway. "You guys can have a small snack but I'm making dinner tonight so only one sandwich or bowl of cereal or one pack of Ramen noodles, OK?" She would make sure dinner was ready by 6:30 when her husband got home so he could walk right in and eat. She opened the freezer and pulled out a Stouffer's vegetable lasagna, her favorite. Two hours in the oven and it was done and she could feel good about getting some vegetables into her kids without a battle because they loved it too. Just a loaf of garlic bread in the oven next to it and it was a complete meal. She should probably make salad with it, but somehow homemade salads never tasted the way they did in restaurants and she had never figured out why. Lettuce, spinach, cheese, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, maybe some crumbled bacon, store-bought croutons, but it didn't taste the same at all. She hated making salad anyway. All the kids wanted to know exactly what they had to eat and didn't have to eat in it. She wanted to tell them to eat all the veggies but they could skip the rat poison pellets and cyanide pills. She told the kids that while the lasagna was cooking she needed to take a nap, she was still kind of sick and needed to rest. Her daughter repeated the mantra "don't over-do it". She smiled even though she wanted to slap her daughter and said "thanks sweetie" and touched her peaches and cream cheek and kissed the top of her penny hair.

She lay in bed after shutting the door and looked at the ceiling for a long time. She thought, I can feel you all suck me down. I can feel myself shutting down and you all are drowning me. Every time I lay down I'm dying and screaming all at the same time. I'm too lost. Too lost by now to be saved. Who would save her anyway? No one. She closed her eyes and pictured herself trying to break out of the prison of her home. She wasn't allowed to drive since the stroke. Every doctor appointment, every trip to the store, every time she wanted to go a mile and a half up the road to the convenience store for cigarettes, she had to ask. Ask to be let out. Ask for her freedom. As long as it didn't conflict with someone else's schedule. Sure, she could wait. Why not, she wasn't all that important, right? Her plans for the weekend? Oh, nothing much, just thinking up ways to die; have a good time. She drifted into sleep.

Mother? What are you doing here? You didn't even want me to keep this baby. You insisted I give her up for adoption and when I refused you said you would put me in a home. NO SHE ISN'T LIKE YOU. SHE DOESN'T LOOK LIKE YOU. GET OUT! I HATE YOU, TAKE YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF MY DAUGHTER! The ghost is back, he is powerful. She smiled ruefully at her mother and raised her hands to the raging storm above her. The sky was black and silver with fury and the ghost overtook her. She knew she was dreaming and this made her feel more powerful. She was asleep and awake at the same time. "ENTER ME!" She screamed at the top of her lungs and her pulse quickened as the entity consumed her body and mind and spirit. "I WILL SHOW YOU", she screamed as her mother tried to stand taller and grab at her. Her mother tried to hit her and she pulled all of the being's energy into her center and pushed her mother back with an invisible, powerful force that sent her mother crashing into a distant wall as the ghost held her naked form in midair and swept his hands between her legs and she cried out in desperate pleasure. His invisible form probed deeper and harder into her body and enveloped her butt and naked breasts in a breath that carried such strength with it that it was erotically painful. She pushed harder and harder into the invisible force raping her and writhed with the ecstasy of orgasm. He laid her on the ground and cupped himself around her mound until the spasms finally dissipated. She rolled over and her hand landed on her husbands folded clothes waiting to be put away on his side of the bed.

She was covered in sweat and had soaked her panties again. Desperate for the feel of release, she rubbed her hands between her legs and there was nothing left to continue. In the distance she could hear a redundant beeping noise and a helpful child knocked on her door to let her know that dinner was "beeping". Shit, she thought, she slept another two hours away. She got up, re-did her pony tail, walked to the kitchen and scrubbed her hands with the antibacterial soap until they turned pink. She opened the oven, got out the perfect lasagna and her husband walked in the front door. He crossed the room to kiss her and she kissed him back. His lips were too wet and she wiped her mouth afterward. He smelled like dirt and grease and day old sweat. It wasn't a good manly smell. It was just a smell and it turned her stomach. He sat at the entry chair next to the kitchen table and took off his old work boots and socks. His pasty white feet with the black hairs and thick toes smelled of sweat and leather. It made her furious that he did this at the table. She simply smiled and asked how his day was. He told her. He didn't ask about hers. She set the table with the Correll wear she bought after the stroke. Her mother had always prized heavy dishes and never bought anything less than stoneware but after the stroke she could no longer lift the plates. She can lift a whole stack of ten Correll plates and put them in the cabinet with no problems. She only worries if one does manage to break, she has heard that they shatter into about a billion little, tiny shards. That could be bad with the kids around. After dinner Blythe and Ferris got assigned "after dinner dishes and clean-up"; Rowan was assigned feeding all the cats and dogs and cleaning the litter box. They groaned and did it anyway. She sat at the table until all the cleaning was done in order to make sure it got done properly. No one had homework that night. No one had soccer or basketball practice. No one had Boyscouts. She retreated back to her bedroom and her husband retreated to his office to play another computer game. She would give anything to have him come to her and hold her or lie in bed and talk to her. He doesn't. She didn't say anything. She lay down again to continue reading her novel. Please belong to me, she thought. He doesn't.

At 8:30 pm she started telling the kids to get ready for bed. Every night was an argument about who had to take a shower. She didn't insist on everyday unless they had gotten particularly dirty, but did require a shower every other night with no exceptions. She had to remind Ferris to shampoo his hair twice or he wouldn't clean it. She had to search for her daughter's shaving foam and Blythe insisted he just bathed yesterday and didn't do much today. She sent Blythe to brush his teeth in the one bathroom the family has while Ferris showered. No one is allowed in the bathroom while Rowan is in there. She locked the door securely due to her overly shy nature and the abhorrent thought that someone might get in there and see her naked. The fact that her mother changed her diapers for two years added nothing to her argument for entry, so everyone always waits for Rowan. Then it was Rowan's turn to brush her teeth and brush her hair and then Ferris's turn. He stayed longest in the bathroom combing his wet hair to get the black curtain of tresses to cover as much of his face as possible while still maintaining enough eyesight not to walk directly into the door. Around ten pm. the kids were ready for bed and slowly go through the motions of getting that one last drink of water they absolutely had to have and the overdone goodnight hugs and extra trips to the bathroom trying to buy themselves just enough time to really irritate their mother. She hugged them all and tucked them in, though to tell the truth, her husband is better at this than she is. She couldn't bend over well anymore and it was painful to bend over a bed. She hated this about herself and wished she could do better and berated her inadequacies. She is worthless and she knows it. What kind of mother cannot tuck her children into bed? Her. She could not do this. It was only "goodnight, sweet dreams" at the door. A lump caught in her throat and she swallowed it into the other lump of guilt that never left her stomach. She pushed it aside and smiled and said goodnight.

She got a thick, brown washcloth from the bathroom cabinet and turned the water on hot and waited. She ran the cloth under the water until her fingers burned and steam rose from the terry cloth. She laid it open on her face and let the steam settle and breathed in the moist air before she began her nightly scrubbing. She scrubbed away all the sweat and sticky feel of dreamt sex and heat from dinner. She took the cloth to her room and sat on the side of the bed and washed her feet. She hated the idea of dirty feet in a bed. She changed the sheets every Sunday. That is one week of dirty feet on the sheets she sleeps on. Her nose involuntarily curled at the thought of her husbands big white, thick feet smelling up his side of the bed. Even though he showers, the dead skin of his feet rubbing around under the covers made her skin break out in gooseflesh and she tried not to imagine it. She took out her greasy pony tail and decided she should wash it tomorrow and if not then, definitely the day after that. She didn't need to change clothes. She wore pajamas all day long unless she was going somewhere. She went no where today. She had no plans for tomorrow either.


	2. Chapter 2

Airplanes flew loudly overhead. She knew there was more to come. Why wasn't anyone listening to her. "We have to leave now, hide!" She yelled. A bush was nearby and she had a child that wasn't one of hers. Hers were safe, but she didn't know where or how. She put the small child under the bush and made it understand it wasn't to move or cry. If it were to cry they would hear it and take it. The child knew. It is a girl, she would be quiet. The mountains in the the distance erupted into a fiery red flame. They had bombed the mountains, but no one had disturbed the bush where the child lay. Suddenly soldiers were everywhere, they surrounded the place. She ran to the bush and shoved herself underneath it with the child. A boot entered her vision and a soldier grabbed her and shoved her toward the crowd they were rounding up. The child was undetected. They were herding everyone into a hospital. She couldn't walk as fast as the rest of them. Her cane was getting smaller and smaller and her legs felt like dead weight. She yelled to the others to run from the soldiers and somehow continued to pull herself along at a dead slow pace as others panicked around her. She fell. She was on the ground alone. Damn this stroke. She had to help. She reached the hospital and they put her in a stretcher and wheeled her to a crowded room. Only curtains divided these rooms. A woman was in labor next to her and was dying. She told the woman not to worry, the baby was outside under a bush. She was safe. The woman screamed and the doctors gave her medicine to make her quiet. She knew she was next. The doctors came over and she yelled for no more medicine and they came at her with needles and she needed the ghost. "Where are you?" she called. "STAY BACK" she screamed at the doctors. She could not breathe. And then the ghost was there and she rose high into the air and flew free. She flew outdoors. She flew past a vast ocean with enormous whales and dolphins and islands and sharks with teeth the size of harpoons. She saw creatures of unimaginable size and color and floated alongside a fifty foot Orca and swam with dolphins with speeds only imaginable on motorized watercraft. She rose up from the water and felt her power and magic and knew she would never be defeated. No longer would there be nothing inside. She had the ghost and he was all hers. Her lover and her power and her protector and her god. She woke up and stretched her body and unthinkingly opened her legs to her new lover who was not there for her tonight. Her breasts ached for his touch and all she had to touch was her husband who hadn't wanted to have sex more than a few times a year. Her body ached for pleasure and she touched herself to see if she could bring herself close to the heat she felt when she was with her ghost. She reached orgasm, but not in the all encompassing way she felt when she was with her ghost.

The next morning the ringing of the phone woke her around 11:30 and she got to it at the last ring. She checked the ID and called her friend back. She faked a smile so her voice would sound like she'd been awake for at least four hours and she was really happy to be on the phone, her friend answered and during the course of the conversation her friend asked if her kids would like to stay over, they were going to have a backyard camp out. She agreed to this readily and thanked her friend who must have the patience of a saint to deal with her own three kids plus Rowan, Ferris and Blythe. She hung up the phone and rolled over in her still half-awake state and stared out the window for a while. She knew that she should be up doing something, but of course not "over-doing it". She sighed and wiped her hand across her damp forehead. Instead of a simple wash cloth bath today, she decided to shower since she would probably see their friends today when they came to pick up the kids. She turned the shower to the highest temperature setting and waited for it to come to full heat before turning the knob halfway back to where she actually left it to bathe. The steam and hot water felt good to her sore body. She slumped her shoulders for a minute in the water to try and loosen them and let the water run down her lower back to no avail. This pain was unbearable. She had been diagnosed with "Fibromyalgia". Hell, half of her doctors couldn't even agree on whether this was a real disease or not and had been told several times that if she would see a shrink she would be just fine. Prozac would make her feel better. Well, she had been on Prozac for a while now and she still hurt so bad that suicide was always on the edge of her mind. Not that she would actually do it over something as silly as pain, but if something more came along, the pain would certainly weigh in. Her hips hurt, her ribs hurt, the area underneath her shoulder blades hurt. Her feet felt like she was walking on needles or rocks, depending on the day. Her arms were tired but she shampooed her hair twice and scrubbed well. She washed her face with soap as the second shampoo was settling into her hair. She washed her face then rinsed her hair. She conditioned her hair. She soaped her body. She shaved her underarms and legs. She rinsed her body. She rinsed her conditioner. She did one last rinse all over and got out. She saw her body in the steamy mirror and loathed her fatness. How did I get here? She asked herself as she looked at her stretched and dimpled obese body. Mildly obese. That was what was on one chart at one of her doctor offices. Mildly obese. Kind of fat. More lies to shield her world; a world that didn't exist. She was mildly obese, and had a mild stroke and had some minor lingering effects and was mildly depressed and if you took off the mask you would fall flat on your face because no one, not even a doctor would be truthful to a fat 30 year old who had a stroke and walked with a cane and was depressed and had panic attacks and insomnia and was so untrusted by family and friends not to fall over that she couldn't work and couldn't babysit and couldn't even make a big dinner anymore without "over-doing it". As she looked in the mirror she cried and desperately wiped at tears with her used towel. It was thick and plush and smells nice like soap. She cries for who she was. She cried for who she was. She cried because her husband used to find her smart. She cried because her husband didn't think she was sexy anymore. She cried because she was so tired after taking a shower she would have to take a nap. She dried off, wrapped her head, turban style, in the towel and went to her wardrobe. Today she picked the butterfly cotton pajama shorts and the pink spaghetti strap top. Bra-less. Who cared? She once heard her mother say if you could hold two pencils under your breasts, you needed to wear a bra. Hell, she could probably fit a whole 64-pack of crayola crayons under there but who gave a shit. Not her. Not anymore. Underneath her breasts had sweat and she hated the sweat stain on her shirt that made her look like she was lactating but she was too tired to care. She lay on the bed and thought about all the times her husband would discuss something interesting with her. Religion, politics, their personal views on the world, silly stuff, anything. Now he would call his sister or mother when he wanted to talk about some clever thing that happened on NPR or a world event. They had no cable television and didn't receive the newspaper, so her entire view of the world came from what little information she gleaned from the internet. Most sites were more worried about what celebrities were buying, eating, dating, fucking or wearing than what was happening during the BP oil spill or in Iraq. She wasn't smart enough to talk about these things anymore. Not since the stroke. She was stupid. She was a rotting carcass in a twelve hundred square foot tomb. She was caged in and she could not free herself without her ghost. He was her only reprieve. He was her savior. If only he would come every time she slept. Sometimes he didn't come at all and she would fall. She fell down and fell off and fell away. She needed him. She loved him. She would have loved to decide when she dreamt of him, but who can decide when and how they dream? If only she could she would stay there and never swallow reality again. He could take over her and her lust and passion and she would be as powerful as he was. Together they could love forever. He made her breathe, he made her feel, he made her respected and listened to and there was never any need to scream when she was him. He was her, and she wanted him to take over entirely.

He came to her now as she slept away the afternoon. She was scared and running from someone who should to love her but didn't. It was him. He had no single face. Sometimes he was an old classmate from high school. Sometimes he was the redneck cowboy she dreamt of when country love songs came on the radio. Sometimes he was big and mean and strong with no face she recognized. Sometimes he was faceless and he attacked her. He always attacked her. It started out as love. Today He was a brawny farm boy. Cowboy hat. Muscles. Beautiful. She went to him for comfort because she was lost and hurting inside. He would help her. He loved her. He loved her now and he wanted to hold her and something inside her screamed her panic as she realized, somehow, that his love had turned into possession. This embrace was not of love, but was holding her down, holding her back, suffocating and breaking her. He would kill her if she couldn't break free. She looked up and his once loving smile had become a smirk as she writhed in his grasp trying to be free. Where were her children? No, where was her ghost? She was frantic; she didn't feel the familiar aching sensation she felt when he was near her. She escaped her captor and ran. Ran like hell. But her legs were heavy from the stroke and her feet became numb as she tried to run. The cane she relied on was slipping over the muddy ground and she couldn't get a firm hold of anything that would propel her onward. He was catching up. Ghost, where are you, she thought, and desperately waited for his feeling to overwhelm her but it did not. She remembered this was only a dream and she could control this. She could call the ghost. She had to. She stopped and faced her attacker and drew her body full and tall and pushed her hands at him the way she had done at her mother. Nothing. There was no energy there to stop him or repel him from her. He advanced. She forced her mind to concentrate and told herself it was only a dream and she could do anything she pleased. Right now she wanted to fly away again. She couldn't move. She was rooted to the spot and He caught her as she screamed herself awake.

It was only one-thirty in the afternoon. She stared at the digital green numbers of the clock and thought about her dream. Where was he? Where was her savior? Somehow she knew she had taken him for granted. He had taught her a lesson. What lesson? She had thought she knew how to summon him, in the state of her conscious sleep. She had been able to reach him and bring him into her. Couldn't she? He wasn't real; this she knew. How could she believe HE was teaching HER anything? She just didn't dream it right. She had just forgotten something she must have known before. She was glad it all was just a dream and she shuddered at the memory of the all too loving embrace that crushed her fragile body and made her cry out in pain until her breath was gone.

She sighed and remembered the messy state of her house and that people were coming over tonight. Who? Friends. Kids. Oh, their friends were going to pick up the kids for a sleepover. She rolled to the edge of the bed and sat still a moment regaining her equilibrium, kept her blood pressure levels in check and got out of bed. She stood for a moment in case her body decided to sit down again without her prior knowledge. Her head cleared and she traveled to the living room, shoulder to the hallway wall and assessed the mess. Not too bad. The kids had gotten better lately she supposed. Misplaced sofa pillows, wrestling dolls; wrestling _action figures_, not dolls littered the floor. Scattered DVD cases and DVD's (probably getting scratched) were strewn around. Dusty. She wouldn't dust today. She would save that for a "big cleaning day", but that day certainly wasn't today. After straightening up the living room she started towards the kitchen which reminded her to take something out of the freezer for dinner. A flutter in her stomach reminded her that she didn't have to make dinner for the kids and that she and her husband would be alone tonight. Maybe they could go out. She smiled to herself, which felt good. She would call him and he could take her out. Oh, they could talk and even if they didn't make love tonight, she would enjoy his company and could hold him and they could even lie in bed together, silently reading their respective books, but it was still closeness. It would still be time together. She went back to the living room for the cordless phone and of course it wasn't there. She went to her own room, the kid's rooms, the office, the bathroom and back to her own room and to the kitchen to find the cordless phone. She finally found it on the kitchen counter top on the base. She dialed his work number and got a busy signal. She dialed his cell phone and he didn't answer. He was on the phone at work. He owned a small rental company that rented things like construction equipment and tools and sewer snakes and commercial vacuum cleaners. She had no idea what most of the stuff in the store was or what it did, but she was proud of him and the hard work he put into keeping the store running. It had been in his family for about 30 years, started of course, by his parents. His devotion to keeping the family business alive was a source of pride and also of deep resentment to her. She was proud of his decision making skills, his work ethic and his business sense. She resented his devotion to the store because she came second to it. He had never taken her on vacation because there was no one to run the store while he was gone. If she had to go to the hospital for an emergency, he would never shut the store up for thirty minutes to take her there, she would just have to find another way to get there. If she wanted him to bring home dinner, it might not get there until after 10 pm. because he had to work late on a faulty computer. Sometimes she hated that store and wished it would burn to the ground. Nevertheless, she always introduced him to her friends and managed to mention that he owned his own business. She set the phone aside and cleaned up the dishes from the kids usual morning mess. She felt sore and stiff, but figured that with a little work around the house she could walk it off and would feel good for tonight. She walked to her room without her shoulder falling against the cream colored hallway wall. She rummaged through her a wardrobe she had painted with bright colors one summer, that sat in a corner of her room and found a pair of khaki Capri pants that fit her well and a sleeveless shirt that was pretty enough to keep her feeling good, though she would change before she went out tonight. She put on her favorite chocolate colored bra. She needed new bras. She needed something sexy. No wonder her husband wasn't turned on by her. She was always wearing the same color underwear. Black, brown or nude. She would try to remember to pick out something sexy for herself next time she went shopping. She never had a lot of money, but perhaps if she bought just the right underwear or negligee or bra, her husband would see how hard she tried to please him and he would make love to her like they used to. At least he might make love to her. He might at least give her a few minutes of pleasure before he became too tired and rolled off of her to go to sleep. That would be something. At least something. She made the bed and smoothed out the wrinkles in the quilt. She neatly arranged the matching pillow shams and the one throw pillow, which didn't really match the bed, but still looked OK on it, and she liked it. She didn't make the bed everyday. Usually she was in the bed more than she was out of it and throw pillows and pillow shams irritated her because she had to find a place to keep them, and keep them clean, while they were not on use on the bed. That place was usually the little corner next to her painted wardrobe that wasn't really used for much, but in a room that small, every inch had to have a purpose. What was the point in putting on extra pillows just to take them back off again and lay them in the corner of her already too crowded, small bedroom? They would lay there for a week usually until she changed the sheets again; then she would once again put the throw pillows on and look at her pretty bed knowing that that night they would be taken off and put in the corner of the room again until she changed the sheets again or at least until she made the bed for some reason. She had never had a bed without pillow shams and throw pillows though, and never would. They made a bed seem complete and pretty. She would always put them on her beds, no matter how ridiculous she thought they really were. She put a CD in her computer and set the computer on her bed so she could listen while she worked. She was 30 years old but still loved her angry-girl, angst ridden music. Her favorites were Pink, Evanescence, Kelly Clarkson (the new stuff), Alanis Morrisette and Terri Clark who was a country singer, who still had the grace of a lady and the attitude to kick a man's ass if it needed kicking. She put in _Funhouse_ by Pink and sang along as she gathered the dirty clothes; picked up odd bits of trash that always seemed to find their way into the floor, like clothing tags. She sorted the mail on her cherry, Japanese-stylenightstand and put away everything on it until only the lamp, a red, cinnamon scented candle, her cell phone holder with the cute little eenamelfrog on it, the silver and black house-phone base and her gray, faux crocodile organizer box remained. The organizer box was overflowing and she had no idea what was in it and had no interest in going through it because for now it looked neat. She had the pencils standing in the pencil holder part and lotion standing in another part and bookmarks hanging out of another pocket, so all the papers crammed into the back of it could stay there forever and rot as far as she was concerned. She took her black trash can to the kitchen to empty it into the bigger garbage bin there and saw milk splashes on the counter. She set down the bedroom trash bin and took yesterday's dish cloth from the sink and wiped up the milk. The cloth was dirty from prior use, so before wiping anything else down, she took the cloth to the dirty laundry and came back and got a new one to clean with. She walked down the L shaped hallway, the soft green carpet padding her toes, and went all the way to the end where the bathroom was and put the cloth in the laundry pile piled up under the small bathroom window. As she turned to leave she noticed the kids had each left a hairbrush or comb out on the counter and not bothered to put them away in the hairbrush basket that sat right on the same counter. She rolled her dark brown eyes and walked to the counter and put them all away. She stopped to look in the medicine cabinet mirror. Large brown eyes, arched eyebrows too thinly plucked near the ends. Upturned nose. Frizzy, dyed red hair. Her hair used to be sleek and healthy, even when it would do nothing but curl, but once she bought some $3.00 hair dye and it burnt her hair so badly that it had never recovered. She pulled her frizzy hair back into a pony tail. It would leave a bump when she took it out, but if her husband took her out tonight, she could straighten it with the curling iron and the bump would vanish. She would try to look really good tonight. She enjoyed having some place to go and looked forward to wearing some make-up and putting on something pretty tonight. Maybe a dress. She had a new one she had never worn. It was cream colored with big red roses on it and a red ribbon belt. It reminded her of something a 1960's pin-up model would have worn. Her mind flashed a picture of herself wearing the dress with a flat, but soft, stomach, lusty thighs and large, high breasts. Red lipstick. Red high heels. No, she couldn't wear even the smallest heels anymore, but she could wear cute flats with it. She sighed. Wearing high heels wasn't the only blasphemy to her image. She had a large stomach (she was apple shaped, a dressing room attendant once told her), small flat breasts with no cleavage. If she lay down, she could place her open hand in between her breasts and not touch either one. Her "apple figure" also didn't include lusty thighs. Her thighs and legs remained skinny. Her legs had a beautiful shape though, even she knew this, so wearing dresses would show off her one asset. She put her face close to the mirror and checked her cheeks, nose, chin and forehead for any signs of blemishes or large pores. There were none. She knew there wouldn't be. She rolled her eyes at herself and left the mirror. Her left shoulder guided her back down the hallway to her bedroom which entered at the corner of the L shaped hallway. She sat down on the edge of the made bed. She turned her head to look at her full closet. She was so ugly. Why did she even own all of those clothes. Retail therapy, that's why. She bought things when she was depressed or happy or had extra money or was worried about her lack of money or when she was out with friends or when she saw the words "sale" in a store front. She pulled the new dress out of the closet and examined it. She would never be a pin-up model, but it was a pretty dress. She took off the tag and hung it back in the closet. She went to throw the tag away and remembered her trash can was still in the kitchen. She let her right shoulder guide her down the rest of the hallway as her mind played all of her flaws in detail and what she would really look like in that dress. She chose not to think about it and stumbled into the living room on her way to the kitchen. The cat had knocked the apple spice scented candle off the coffee table for the hundredth time. She walked over to the coffee table, picked up the candle and set it back where it went. What was in her hand? Oh, the tag. She walked to the kitchen and threw the tag away in the kitchen garbage and got a new bag out for her small bedroom trash basket. Instead of putting it into the wastebasket she took it back to the bathroom to scoop the cat-box into. She meant to do that earlier in the day but had somehow become distracted. She had to pee first. She set the litter scooper on top of the bag next to the litter box. The toilet paper spool was empty so she reached under the sink, got a new one, took off the old one, turned the new one facing outward and put it back on the holder. After her bladder was emptied she went back out of the bathroom to her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed again. Damn, she meant to get the garbage can. She stood up again and then sat down again. She needed a pain pill first. She gulped one down with the water that always stayed on her nightstand on a coaster that always had standing water in it. The cups would sweat and leak all over the coaster, so when she took a drink, water dripped and dribbled all over her. She set the cup back onto the coaster and laid down on the made bed. She felt sleepy. She might doze for a while, just until the kids got home from school.

The little door was bigger. She knew this door. It was secret. Only she knew this door and it would take her to her grandmother's special upstairs room, up the spiraling staircase. Who was that? What was that noise? She couldn't go in now, what if they found the secret room. Panicking, she looked around her and realized there was a small space she could fit into and slide under the floor to an enclosed area behind a stairwell. She quickly slid down into it and hid in the furthest corner in the darkest shadows. Someone was looking for her. It was the soldiers. They would kill her if they found her. Her fear frustrated her and paralyzed her. Running. Someone was running down the stairs in boots. They would find her, there was no where to hide, no where to turn. She couldn't close her eyes. The soldier turned the corner and peered into the darkness. She tried not to breath but couldn't hold her breath long enough. He heard. Flashlight beam! He found her. Her arm seared as he grabbed her and yanked her from her refuge. She fought and he held her harder. Pain shot through her arm as he dragged her outside. She tried to turn and look at him, but he wouldn't allow it. All she could tell about him was his hard, huge hands. He shoved her into a crowd and left her. An old lady looked to her and begged for help. What was she supposed to do for this lady? She was no leader, she couldn't even save herself. Someone grabbed her from behind. It was her husband. She shoved him away, he couldn't help her. He betrayed her. "I know who you are, GET AWAY", she screamed at him. He held her tighter. "I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE" she yelled as loud as she could. Her voice could barely be heard over the bombs going off in the background. Someone was bombing the hell out of this place and she needed to hide and needed to get away from her husband. Couldn't he hear her? She was screaming at him and he wouldn't hear her. He stayed there with her as she pushed and fought him. He didn't understand, he couldn't understand her or wouldn't. He had betrayed her. She was in this mess because of him, somehow he had brought her to this. His eyes were hollow as she feared him and fought his grip. Her heart pounded and she needed her ghost. Someone had a gun to her chest. She knew this would hurt, she knew this would kill her and she knew if she could wake up she could escape. She screamed the silent screams of the dreamers and the gun fired. Once. Twice. ThreeFour. God it hurt and crimson blood poured from her wounds. He failed her. Her ghost, her lover and savior was gone. She would die and he would forget her. Her son told her goodbye, they were leaving.

What?

Leaving, they were leaving for the night, remember. She looked at him with her waking eyes and grabbed her chest sure of the pain she still felt and knew he would panic at seeing her riddled with bullets. "Mom?". Awake. God, she was awake. It wasn't real, and here she was hugging her son as he told her goodbye. She jumped out of the bed too quickly and her head swam from the sudden leap from horizontal to vertical. She held him to her and walked down the hallway leaning on him. Her kids were in the kitchen getting ready to leave. She hugged them all and told them to be good. They promised and she waved to the person she couldn't see in the waiting van outside.

She stumbled back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. Where was her ghost? He had left her twice to die. She needed him and a lump caught in her throat at the thought of his blatant abandonment. She mourned her loss of him and his love. She hated him for leaving her. She had taken him for granted. That was it, she had taken him for granted and assumed he would come when she called. She had believed she was in control of him. He was inside her taking over, but he was fully in control. She had to be with him, but he would come only when she submitted to his power. His lust. His fill. He would dominate her and she would only be able to defeat her enemies when she had fully given herself over. She would give anything to feel him again. She knew this much.

Her husband came home late. "Hey babe", she smiled and kissed him. "Why don't you take a shower and we'll go on a date. We can go get something to eat and maybe -"; He interrupted her. He was tired. It was already 8:30 at night and he just wanted to eat something and go to sleep. To relax. She warmed them up some leftover vegetable lasagna and set the table. He sat down and ate his lasagna in five bites. Shovel fulls. She hated to see him eat. He made slurp noises whether there was anything to slurp or not. His jaw popped every time he opened his mouth wide enough to cram more food in. His cheeks bulged as he chewed and shoved in more food before he was done chewing the first mouthful. He was disgusting. His son did the same thing. How had this man been raised? His family prided themselves on their high educations but his parents ate like hyenas. She stopped eating, fork nearly to her mouth as she unconsciously stared at the way he pushed as much food as possible into his mouth. He didn't look up. Head down, fork held sideways, food shoved in as his jaw popped and "sluuurp" as he came up for air. She shivered and resumed eating, keeping her eyes on her own plate. Her husband finished, put his plate in the sink, kissed her on top of the head and went to his office for another evening of role-play computer games. She threw away half of her slice of lasagna and almost dumped it in the bedroom trash bin that was still bag less, still next to the kitchen garbage. She sighed and took her plate to the sink where she rinsed their dishes and put them into the dishwasher. It really was time to run the dishwasher, she thought. She opened up the cabinet under the sink for the dishwasher detergent. Instead she grabbed a small garbage bag, stuffed it into her bedroom trash can and brought the can back to her room. She looked in the bedroom mirror. She had hoped to look good enough for her husband. Obviously she had failed. She took off her clothes and put on a pair of cotton sleep shorts and took off her bra. She put on a sleeveless t-shirt and threw her days clothes into the laundry hamper. She wanted to cry. She grabbed her cigarettes instead and headed outside to smoke and call all of her friends so she could gripe to them about how her husband never took her out, even when they didn't have any kids for the night. She loved him, but she sure hated him sometimes.


	3. Chapter 3

She could hear the gravel crunch underneath her shoes as she walked up the short drive to her grandmother's trailer home. She opened the door and her brother and father were inside on the couch. Her father was smoking cigarettes. Her brother was smoking weed. She wanted to know why her brother was there. He was homeless and needed to stay in one of the rooms. Her father had been dead now for five years. It was good to see him again. He never spoke in her dreams, he only looked at her with those calf eyes of his. He could talk to her that way and it was fine. She didn't want him to speak for fear of what bruises would come from his mouth. She walked to the very end of the trailer and there was an enormous room big enough for a bed she could share with her two children and another section to turn into a living room. She went back up the long dark hallway and went into the kitchen. Dishes overran the sink. Grease and God only knows what was burnt all over the oven and stove. Garbage was piled all over, in bags and out of bags. She looked through the cabinets for something to eat and found only melted popsicles. She would have to buy more popsicles. She passed her father and brother again as they sat silently on the sofa watching a television that was turned up entirely too loud. She went back down the hallway locking the windows to each room she passed. She came to the end room and began to imagine how she would set it up for her family. As she walked around the room the scene shifted and she was at the little door again. The door was bigger now and she could see scratches on the white paint as though someone had tried to break in. She opened it easily and went upstairs to her grandmother's secret room. She loved being in this room but never seemed to be able to stay in it long enough to find it's treasures and secrets. She once found a hidden compartment in a jewelry box here and inside found missing jewelry that she had misplaced since childhood. She noticed two twin beds in the room covered in thick quilts and dolls. She crept closer as a voice whispered "don't wake The Aunts up". It was him! It was her ghost. She turned around and felt his power around her. "You left me" was the only thing she could say through a soft, scared little voice that sounded too small to be her own. "I have haunted your dreams since you were a child. I will always be here. I will decide when you need me and when you don't. You will have me when I say you will. Only then". This was said in her head in a hushed voice that was not unkind and sent a thrill through her.

"Who are The Aunts?"

"They will die soon and then you may have all you see, but do not wake them up. They will be angry."

"Is this real? I cannot trust myself to know."

Suddenly her sex was filled with heat and desire she had never known. Her labia throbbed as she was jerked into mid-air and filled between her legs so much that she cried out in pain and pleasure. Her nipples ached to be touched, caressed, bitten. Desire overtook her so fully that she couldn't see through the tears that ran into her eyes and couldn't hear over her own gasps of ecstasy. Something strong gripped her buttocks and pressed hard at the hole between them. This intensified her pleasure to levels she had never imagined. She wanted to open herself completely. "Fill me up, please, oh, God, fill me with yourself", she moaned between sobs of ache and want and impatience. "Is this real?" he shouted at her. "Do you need more proof? I will always be here and you cannot will me away! Do you understand?"

"Yes"

"UNDERSTAND ME!", he shouted into her head as with one final thrust inside her body she shuddered and convulsed as the rapture of her orgasm brought her to tears of joy and fear. Fear that she was speaking to the most terrifying and beautiful creature she had ever imagined. Her body lay naked and trembling on a stone floor. She cried out for him. Where was her beautiful nightmare? She felt warm as a silky cloth enveloped her and warmed her. She could feel him within and wanted to fly. All she needed to do was think about flying and she was up. She wanted to see the ocean he had taken her to before. She flew into sunshine and could smell the salt air as she descended on a vast ocean. She landed on the white beach and walked it's sandy shores. She dove into the waves and swam out to sea in search of the beautiful animals she had seen before. She was alone. There were no giant creatures of the ocean to marvel at and no one to accompany her solitary swim. A small wooden boat rocked slowly on the waves. She swam to it and climbed in. Drifting. She lay down and felt his power leave her body as she drifted aimlessly in the deep blue water. "Look", he whispered. She propped her head lazily on the side of the boat to look out and was startled to find sharks circling her small vessel. "Please don't leave me here", she pleaded. Praying to him she waited to feel his power encompass her and it would not. "Return to me, please", she cried to the still air. She buried her face in her hands and cried. Her sobs rang out into the silent, silver dream sky; the silent green waves; the silent monsters circling beneath her. "Never sleep and you'll never die" he spoke into her ear as the shark's teeth broke the surface of the water. She awoke to her own shrieks of terror and a ringing in her ear.

The phone. The phone was ringing. Where the fuck was the phone. It was 8:30 in the morning on Saturday, who the hell was calling. She found the phone and picked it up after the last ring. She checked the ID and called her friend back. Could the kids stay another night? Sure. Fine. Be good. She rolled back over and faced the empty side of the bed where her husband would have been until he left for work this morning. He worked six days a week. What a man. A hard worker; a good provider. She was so lucky. That bastard never took off work long enough to look at her sideways much less long enough to take a long weekend with her and the kids or anything. What an asshole. Never sleep and you'll never die. The words played in her head as she remembered the fantastical dream she had last night, or maybe it was this morning. The sexuality of those dreams always consumed her thoughts, but now other thoughts were pushing the sex aside. She noticed her hands trembled slightly as she remembered the terror of the ghost leaving her to the sharks after making her feel so safe and loved and carefree. He had used her. He had controlled her. He had raped her and she had enjoyed it. He raped her. She gagged. How could she be raped in a dream? It was real though, real enough for her body to respond. She ran to the bathroom and threw up in the sink. Shaking, she looked into the mirror at her pale face. She had not been raped had she? She knew she had thought of it this way before, but not _really_ thought about it. Before last night. Before, she was having a wet dream without meaning to. Last night she had been satisfied like never before but then had been left. Abandoned. Cruelly abandoned. She certainly wasn't bruised and had had no physical contact, even with herself, but she felt raped all the same. Stupid. How stupid. Raped in a dream. Stupid woman. She turned the hot water on and reached for a thick yellow washcloth.

Her husband came home at four o'clock. He worked shorter hours on Saturdays. She had put on loose cotton pants and a low cut t-shirt. She greeted him at the door and kissed his lips. How would he like it if she changed and he showered and they went out. They had the whole afternoon and the kids were staying the night again with their friends. They had the whole night to themselves. He needed to work on the fence around the yard. "Honey, you can work on the fence anytime", she gushed with a smile "we have a night to ourselves with _no_ kids. I mean, c'mon how often does that happen? Never? Please, honey."

"I really want to get that fence done so we can get the goat. I'm excited about getting the goat babe. Sorry, maybe another time, but let me get this done today. OK?"

"Sure."

Anger rushed through her as she realized she had lost her husbands attentions to a goat fence. If it wasn't so fucking pathetic, it would be pretty funny. A Goddamned goat. She hoped the goat would put out when her husband started feeling frisky. If he started feeling frisky. Ever. Again. She went to her room and changed into cotton pajama pants and a short sleeved t-shirt. She sat on the made bed and reached for her novel. She opened it to the bookmark and read the same sentence six times. A tear fell on the corner of the book and she thought how romantically pathetic she would look now if only her husband would walk in at that precise moment and see the single tear she had cried over him on the page of the book. He never heard her cry though. He would never notice a single tear. He wouldn't notice if she stripped naked and ran screaming through the yard; unless maybe she tripped over the goat fence. Fucking goat. She came second to a fucking goat. She grabbed her cigarettes and went to the porch on the opposite side of the house from her husband. She called her mother and all of her friends and griped about what an idiot she had married. They all agreed on this one. Well, all but one who told her to help him out and see if he would take her out later. Meet him in the middle, her friend had advised. "Meet in the middle my ass", she scoffed, "the middle road was Goat Avenue way back there and it's going to meet Kiss My Ass Boulevard in a few short minutes". Her friend had laughed. She felt smug and liked it. She was smug and right. He was a goat loving asshole. A _wrong_ goat loving asshole. She smiled in triumph to herself before going back inside. He came in and asked her to come help him with the fence. If they got done early, they might still be able to go out and do something. She looked at him with all the disgust she could muster and said "well, at least I'm only _second_ to the goat, and you'll pencil me in for later if there's time". He sighed and walked back out the door. Never mind, he didn't need her. Good. She had never begged anyone for a date, and she wasn't going to start with him. Good. He wasn't going to take out someone with an attitude like hers.

He was such a good guy. She didn't deserve someone as good as him. He was an excellent father, had seen her through a massive stroke, had supported them all financially until her disability was finally approved – 3 years after her stroke – and he loved her no matter how ugly she was or how difficult she was. In all their years together she could count their fights on one hand. They just worked together and he was a good man. She'd be damned if she'd go help with that goat fence though. Maybe she would make him some ice water later. Probably not. He was such a jerk.


End file.
